Easter reflections

Picture an 18th century Virginia plantation. Men in waistcoats and women in bonnets singing buoyant hymns while the preacher comes forward dressed in period garb, neck scarf held together by a couple of paper clips.

I know this because I was in the kitchen when my sister-in-law was fixing her father’s kerchief.

Up before sunrise, we Taylors by birth and marriage layered sweatshirts and sneakers over church clothes and trudged through damp grass to the chosen spot. The sun was rising behind us so I had to glance over my shoulder to catch the pink and purple streaks.

In front of us stood our father at the pulpit, ever-whiter beard matching his billowing sleeves, a tiny flashlight pointed at his notes.

Just before the service started, he hobbled over to where his shivering family stood, eyes glinting with amusement.

“I don’t suppose anyone happens to have a Bible?”

Funny for the pastor to forget the Good Book on Easter, perhaps, but these things happen when you get up at 5 a.m. and there isn’t time for breakfast.

So where does one find a Bible in the wee hours of the morning on a college campus?

Who knows what they would have done in the 1700’s but, in 2012, the preacher’s son trotted to his car and hurried back holding out his iPad, open to the Book of John.

And so the old-time preacher read scripture from an illuminated piece of metal proffered by his faithful son who scrolled screens with his finger the way an assistant might flip music pages for the maestro.

It made a poignant image, father and son standing side-by-side on Easter morn.

Past and present bled together while the future huddled under hoodies.

The old message beamed out from a brand-new source.

The old man who faced death last year led us in the celebration of new life.